Crunchyroll has announced a major move into legitimate distribution of anime with a deal with TV Tokyo, Viz co-parent Shueisha, and Pierrot, major producers in the Japanese anime industry. In conjunction with the launch of this deal, Crunchyroll is redesigning its site to “ensure that all professionally-produced content is approved by licensors.” This is a major departure from its previous model, which relied primarily on user-uploaded content.

The first anime distributed under the new deal will be Naruto Shippuden, which will be streamed to paid Crunchyroll subscribers, and free with advertising support, beginning on January 8th. Viz Media announced late Sunday that it would be offering Naruto Shippuden free on Naruto.com beginning in January (see “Free Naruto Anime in U.S. Days after Japan”). Viz also said that it would be continuing to distribute episodes through Hulu and Joost.

Crunchyroll had previously arranged with Gonzo (see “Gonzo Series Available for Download”) for distribution of its series in English nearly simultaneously with broadcast in Japan.

This move continues the trend toward online distribution of anime in the U.S. on a nearly simultaneous basis with the broadcast of new episodes in Japan. As Crunchyroll CEO Kun Gao put it, “By providing more viewing options to fans and closing the release gap with domestic broadcast in Japan, Crunchyroll helps fans satisfy their craving for the latest anime while supporting rights holders’ efforts to monetize their content.”

The impact on DVD sales of such widespread, rapid, legal availability of online anime content is unknown. Early indications, according to Viz, have been that there is no impact (see “Interview with Viz’s Dan Marks, Part 1”). To own anime legally, fans will still have to buy it, whether through DTO services or on DVD, so it may be that there’s a distinction between fans that are willing to watch things once and forget about it and “collectors” that want to have episodes available for viewing on the platform of their choice at any time. And as Blu-ray becomes more prevalent, that may be an additional incentive to buy packaged media.

What is clear is that the landscape for anime distribution is changing rapidly. The long-awaited “convergence” of TV and computers is being bypassed by fans that are very comfortable watching entertainment on their computers and don’t see any difference between that and the screen in their living rooms. The impact of that phenomenon on TV viewership and DVD purchases is unclear, but the scene is changing so rapidly that the effects, on a scale heretofore unimaginable, should be visible in 2009.

Heres the links for a two part interview about the future of crunchyroll:

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I used to donate shortly after joining them back in Feb. of 2007 (to watch Naruto Shippuden ironically) and did it roughly for 6 months. When they switched over to providing HD anime and unlimited bandwidth to all viewers I stopped as it was pointless to pay to get access to something that was now free to all viewers.

Considering I detest streaming anime and the prices they're offering for instant access (I only do it in those rare cases that I can't actually find a downloadable version (like with Macross 7 and Dirty Pair (now of which I've found tons)) I doubt I'll pay to even get access to what they're offering now (12.99 for a month of anime streaming is to expensive imo, especially considering during the month I maybe watch anime on anywhere between 5-10 days (pending on work schedule and homework/project work load).

I'll stick to my downloading, even if it is getting harder to find subs these days with everyone breathing down fansubber's necks and the fact that everything is getting licensed shortly after it starts.

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I'll stick with anything but Crunchroll. That site has horrible streaming quality even when set to HQ. I used to watch Tower of Druge (sp?) and some other show from Ganzo last season since it was their first attempt at legit streaming. Needless to say I was not happy with the quality and don't plan to watch shows from them again until they do like Joost or Hulu in terms of Quality. Heck youtube's quality is better then Crunchfuck's.

All hail piggy, king of bacon ^)^

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The quality of the naruto eps doesn't seem that bad to me now, but the sub font isn't that appealing and when you set it to full screen mode, the fonts are massive! And full screen doesn't run that good for me at all. I hope another group picks up Naruto if DB does stop subbing it. Either way tho, I'll probably still drop this series in the near future if it doesn't end soon. *shrug*

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Horrible Subs is still going to carry on by the looks of it once DB stops (which should be now, I believe their last episode was 91 which just came out) and DB seems to support them, whether their quality is good or not I can't say. I'll download theirs next week and see. If the quality isn't that good then I guess I'll be dropping the show earlier then I anticipated. I think there is one other group out there also doing it but their name escapes me atm.

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Well if any of you have a paid account on Crunchyroll you can have access to downloads of high def episodes. Some people leaked a Skip Beat crunchyroll episode that was high res on bittorrent. Wasn't bad so hopefully more people will do this.